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Osborn, Henry Fairfield, 1857-1935

 Person

Dates

  • Existence: 1857-08-08 - 1935-11-06

Abstract

Henry Fairfield Osborn was a paleontologist, museum curator and administrator at the American Museum of Natural History. His 45-year career at the museum established it as a leading institution of research and scholarship in the fields of paleontology and evolution. Osborn's interest in paleontology, atypically for his time, derived as much from biology as from geology; in his undergraduate and graduate studies, he concentrated on biology, anatomy, embryology and neurology. In 1891, Osborn began his tenure at the AMNH by organizing and heading the new department of mammalian paleontology, while simultaneously accepting a similar position in biology at Columbia University. The AMNH department, which was eventually renamed vertebrate paleontology, was definitive in the museum's research and mission: the study and teaching of evolution. Osborn began his administrative work in 1899, becoming president in 1908, a position he held for twenty-five years. His strength was in leadership and education rather than empirical science; under his guidance, the museum expanded greatly in physical space and endowment, scientific staff, research and public education. Like his predecessor Albert S. Bickmore, Osborn recognized the need to combine information with entertainment. He popularized paleontology by ensuring that the museum's exhibits did not merely display the researchers' work, but also explained it in an attractive and accessible manner. Osborn, like so many of his contemporaries, was a prolific writer. His attempt to research and publish a definitive record of all the fossil mammals of North America was wildly overambitious, but by the time of his death he had completed substantial works on Equidae, titanotheres, rhinoceroses and Proboscidea, as well as on sauropod dinosaurs; his total publications number 940 (books, monographs, articles and papers), about half devoted to vertebrate paleontology.

Citation:
From biographical note for Osborn's archive collection at the AMNH Library, Mss .O835, written by Ann Herendeen.

Topics

Found in 55 Collections and/or Records:

Art Survey No. 1257: Henry Fairfield Osborn (1857-1935) / LL "Lamar", 1933

 Item
Identifier: Art Survey No. 1257
Scope and Contents From the Collection:

The Art Survey is an inventory of artwork throughout the Museum. It is not exhaustive: numerous additional artworks are documented in the library catalog after the survey's completion. Additional research on artworks in the Museum is in progress.

Dates: 1933

Associate curatorship of Dr. Chester Reeds, 1917-1919

 File — Box: 1, Folder: 32
Identifier: Mss .H682
Scope and Contents

Correspondence among Hovey, Chester A. Reeds, and Henry Fairfield Osborn regarding appointment of Dr. Reeds as Associate Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology.

Dates: 1917-1919

Barnum Brown papers

 Collection
Identifier: VPA 114
Scope and Contents

The collection consists of Brown's correspondence, notes, images and maps relating to his field work, papers of his second wife, Lilian Brown, drafts of unfinished autobiography, notes and illustrations for his scientific articles, records of his work for the museum, including exhibition halls, records of his commercial work as well as reports from his consulting work for the goverment. The collection also contains papers of Peter Kaisen who was a long-term Brown's assistant.

Dates: 1877-1963

Budget, 1917-1924

 File — Box: 1, Folder: 22
Identifier: Mss .H682
Scope and Contents

Primarily correspondence among E. O. Hovey, Chester Reeds, and museum administrators regarding budgets for the Department of Geology. Also includes handwritten budgets and notes.

Dates: 1917-1924

Central Asiatic Expeditions records

 Collection
Identifier: Mss .C446
Scope and Contents This collection is a record of the Museum’s explorations undertaken during the 1920s in the Gobi Desert under the leadership of Roy Chapman Andrews. A list of the men who participated in the CAE can be culled from the expeditions’ letterheads used by museum personnel in New York. All but three of the men cited on these letterheads are represented here. Those not found are Mont Reid, a physician, James Wang, an interpreter and G. Horwath of motor transport. The variety of other correspondents...
Dates: 1916-1940; Majority of material found within 1921-1933

American Museum of Natural History, Department of Preparation and Installation: Diorama and Hall construction

 Collection
Identifier: DR 104
Scope and Content Note This collection spans the planning and development of the Department of Preparations for the dioramas of the various halls. These folders detail the requests and expenditures for the efforts made in travel, models, and sketches. The majority of the correspondence is directed from or to James L. Clark, the Director of the Department of Preparations between the 1930’s-1940’s. Much of the correspondence from James Lippit Clark, is directed to trackers, guides, taxidermists, donors, and...
Dates: 1919-1962

Department of Vertebrate Paleontology correspondence

 Collection
Identifier: DR 084
Scope and Contents

Correspondence relative to the formation and organization of the Department of Vertebrate Paleontology. Correspondence between Morris K. Jesup, Henry Fairfield Osborn, C.O. Marsh, J.L. Wortman, J.B. Hatcher, O.A. Peterson, W.H. Utterback. Many letters from Volume II have been removed. Two volumes containing approximately 100 letters.

Dates: 1891-1906

Department of Vertebrate Paleontology field work collection

 Collection
Identifier: VPA 101
Scope and Contents

The Department of Vertebrate Paleontology began sending staff into the field as early as the first year of its founding, 1891. Since then the department has organized and supported decades of seminal field work as it continues to do so today.

Dates: 1880-2000

Department of Vertebrate Paleontology correspondence

 Collection
Identifier: VPA 105
Scope and Contents Department of Vertebrate Paleontology correspondence from 1887-1966, alphabetized by subject or author. Hundreds of scientists worldwide are represented by correspondence and include Alexander Agassiz, Glover M. Allen, Florentino Ameghino, Erwin H. Barbour, Franz Boas, Stephen F. Borhegyi, Robert Broom, Barnum Brown, Hermon C. Bumpus, Edwin H. Colbert, Thomas Alva Edison, Walter Granger, William T. Gregory, Claude W. Hibbard, D.A. Hooijer, William T. Hornaday, Remington Kellogg, Charles R....
Dates: 1887-1966